If you missed your chance to buy one of the coolest smartwatches ever made, listen up. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky’s new outfit Core Devices is now accepting pre-orders for two new Pebble-like wearables.
They’re practically identical to their older offerings circa 2016, complete with ePaper displays and support for more than 10,000 apps that run on the recently open sourced PebbleOS. You’ll want to hurry, though, because they’ll only be made in limited numbers.
Up first is the Core 2 Duo, which is basically the same as the Pebble 2 on the outside, with a few updated innards.
This beauty features a 1.26-inch monochrome ePaper display housed in a water-resistant polycarbonate frame (choose between black or white). This one will set you back by US$149 and is due to arrive in July.
Core Devices
Alternatively, you can opt for the Core Time 2, based on the Pebble Time 2 that didn’t make it to the market as the brand folded before it could ship this model.
This one gets a slightly larger 64-color 1.5-inch touch-sensitive ePaper display, wrapped in a water resistant CNC-milled aluminum frame with matching buttons. It also gets a heart rate monitor. You’ll be able to choose between black, white, and hopefully a third colorway for $225; units will begin shipping in December.
Core Devices
Beyond that, these two watches are largely the same. They both get a mic and speaker, 30-day battery life (up from 7 days on the old ones), companion apps for iPhone and Android, an upgraded actuator for vibration alerts, a newer Bluetooth chip, and new barometer and compass sensors.
I’m chuffed to see these making a comeback. Pebble watches feature a clever ‘timeline’ interface to display your notifications, run a bevy of apps lovingly built by fans of the platform, and an enthusiastic community has kept several cloud-based services for said apps alive all these years.
It’s worth noting that there are loads of other smartwatches out there that are cheaper, more feature-packed, and/or readily available. So yeah, you’re really buying a Pebble in 2025 for the nostalgia factor, or if you care to hack one and enhance its capabilities, or because you want to join the community’s efforts in keeping this ambitious project alive. If you’re able and inclined, you can tweak the open source OS and the watch hardware to make it truly your own.
Core Devices
Migicovsky has made a commendable effort getting this off the ground and taking the project as far as he has already. He certainly lucked out when Google open sourced the OS powering Pebble back in January, but he notes that he started working on this revival ahead of that announcement, on his own steam.
I’m particularly excited about the month-long battery life, and the possibilities the touchscreen will open up on the pricier Core Time 2 – a first for any Pebble watch. Migicovsky explains that will mainly come in handy with interactive complications, which will open related apps when you tap on at-a-glance step counts, calendar notifications, and weather icons on watch faces.
The company will only make 10,000 units this time around, and while they’ll ship internationally, you might incur customs fees and such outside the US. You can order a Pebble on the store page.
Source: RePebble / Core Devices